


Walk the Wire

by anr



Category: Speed (1994)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-18
Updated: 2008-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alive and mostly okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk the Wire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brigid31](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=brigid31).



> Request: Jack and Annie trying to make a life together after the movie.

Jack's boss shows up again, a relieved expression on his face when he sees them standing beside the train wreckage, alive and mostly okay.

"You two about done here?" he asks, producing a handcuff key. "'Cause I'm not so sure the city can take much more."

Jack takes the key off him and runs his fingers along her wrist, turning her hands over and unlocking the cuffs. "Yeah," he says, looking at her. "We're done here."

She shivers.

  


* * *

  


They make it to the hospital this time, both of them under strict orders from Lieutenant McMahon to do whatever the doctors say and _nothing else_. She'd think the order was meant for Jack only except, every time she closes her eyes, she sees herself stepping out of the ambulance even though Jack had said to wait.

"I'd make a terrible cop," she hears herself tell the doctor when he asks her to take a deep breath, "I hate being told what to do."

Jack's standing against the wall, watching her get checked out. His eyes are dark, unreadable.

"No, really," she insists. "In pre-school I was forever being sent to the corner for drawing outside the lines."

"You're in shock," the doctor says, tone disinterested. She doubts he's heard a word she's said. "I'm keeping you overnight for observation."

"That's why I went into graphic design," she says, unable to stop herself. "So I could create my own lines."

Jack says nothing. She keeps talking.

  


* * *

  


They're both kept overnight in the end, sent to separate rooms on separate floors, but every time she opens her eyes, Jack is sitting beside her bed, watching over her.

She'd find it a little creepy if it wasn't so goddamned reassuring.

  


* * *

  


The doctor tells her to take it easy for a few days, gives her the name and number of a counsellor.

A cop drives her home, Jack sitting beside her on the backseat, and she wants to invite him in but --

"I need to go into work," Jack says. For the first time since they met -- yesterday, she thinks suddenly, was it really only _yesterday_? -- he can't quite meet her eyes. "Can I --"

"Yes," she says quickly. "Yes." She rattles off her phone number and gets out of the car, walking around to the sidewalk.

Jack's window is down, and he looks up at her. "See you, Annie."

Her throat is suddenly tight. She swallows hard. "See you, Jack."

She stands there and watches him drive away.

  


* * *

  


She throws the counsellor's number in the trash, showers until the hot water runs out, calls her mom and dad in Arizona and reassures them that she's okay. There are twenty-two messages on her answering machine, all from TV and radio stations, newspaper and magazine reporters, and she listens to each one before deleting them en masse. She showers again.

She turns on the TV and there is the bus, exploding into the side of the plane. She changes channels and sees her and Jack standing beside the train, his arms around her, fists against her back, and her cuffed hands gripping the neck of his t-shirt.

When she lies down she sees the baby pram, hears Helen's voice -- _I have to, Annie_ \-- and feels Jack's breath on her neck, so she chainsmokes instead of sleeping and the number of the counsellor is still there when she checks her bin in the morning.

  


* * *

  


After breakfast, she walks ten blocks to the nearest mall to buy Sam a 'get well soon' card and there are surveillance cameras everywhere, two in this store, five in that one, two dozen or more in the Walmart. Turning around, she walks home again only to find a reporter and camera guy waiting outside her apartment building. She answers a couple of questions while she fusses with her door key -- _were you scared?_ yes. _what was it like?_ scary -- and escapes as quickly as possible.

The next day the LA Times runs an interview with Stephens about his experiences on the bus. Her name isn't mentioned very often but, when it is, Jack's name isn't far away and she finds herself wondering when it was they became a matched set. Most of the TV news stations have stopped showing footage of the crashes and are instead talking about some football scandal; she's relieved not to see her own interview.

Even though she doesn't need it, she moves the counsellor's number from her bin to her fridge door and, when Jack doesn't call, she tells herself she never really expected him to anyway.

  


* * *

  


The next day she decides to go to work and makes sure she's at the bus stop five minutes early. Her hands are shaking, and her heart is racing, but she makes herself get on when the bus pulls up and she sits in her usual spot. She rides the bus the whole way to work with her eyes closed, breathing faint and laboured, but she _rides the bus the whole way to work_ and that's something.

Her supervisor never comments on the fact that she hasn't called or shown up for work in four days. He lets her work in the back office, designing a new placemat that they all know head office will never approve, and brings her free soda every hour. She hears him gossiping on the phone with the store manager -- _she was on the news, dude, think of all the free publicity!_ \-- and isn't surprised. She gives him a week, tops, before he realises she's not playing nice with the media and dumps her back on drive-thru duty.

She catches the bus home again and almost passes out because she's too wired to worry about inhaling and exhaling when they get on the freeway. It doesn't really feel like a victory when she has black spots dancing before her eyes.

She used to think working at _Uncle Salty's Seafood Hut_ was the most pathetic thing about her life but she's had maybe two hours sleep a night since Monday, has gone through two cartons of cigarettes and a takeout menu's worth of Chinese, and if the fucking highlight of her week is the fact that she can still catch a goddamned bus to and from work -- something that, up until Monday, she'd done every day for six weeks straight without ever thinking twice about it -- well, then, clearly she needs to reassess.

There's a bottle of vodka in her freezer, a cheesecake in the fridge, and a fresh pack of cigarettes in her bag.

"Fuck you, asshole," she toasts Payne, and for several hours that's the last thing she remembers doing, thank god.

  


* * *

  


She wakes up on her sofa, ink on her cheek from where she's used yesterday's newspaper as a pillow, and a piece of cheesecake ground into her carpet.

It's Harry Temple's funeral today, according to the obituaries, and when she reads that she wishes she still had some of the vodka left.

She takes a taxi to the cemetery and tries not to think of it as being a step back.

  


* * *

  


Jack's there, of course, in uniform, cuts and bruises vivid against his skin.

She stands at the back of the crowd and watches him from behind the dark safety of her sunglasses; tries to work out if he looks tired, or just sad, or still angry, but the truth is she has nothing to compare against. She barely knows him.

When the service ends she loses sight of him, and that's probably for the best. She turns to go.

"Annie."

For all that she doesn't know him, the fact that he's suddenly standing beside her is no surprise whatsoever. "Hey, Jack."

  


* * *

  


He leads her away from the others and it's not until her back is against an old oak tree, his body angled in towards hers, that she realises he's holding her hand. She doesn't let go.

"I tried -- I _wanted_ to call you," he says, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand.

"I would have answered," she says. Then, "I haven't been sleeping."

He looks away, back towards the gravesite. "Me either."

"I caught a bus yesterday," she admits. "And now I have cheesecake in my carpet."

For a moment he says nothing, just blinks, but then a hint of a smile touches his lips. "I have pretzels in my bathtub."

She starts to laugh and ends up crying, and before she knows it his arms are around her, his body warm and safe. She holds on tight and doesn't try to stop.

  


* * *

  


When she gets home she grabs her phone, and the counsellor's number off the fridge, and leaves a message on their answering machine, asking for an appointment. She has no idea what she'll talk to them about, but maybe it'll be enough just that she goes.

  


* * *

  


Jack calls, and she answers, and somehow they end up deciding to meet at the mall for a food court lunch. When she tries to recall the conversation later, all she can remember is Jack mentioning that the greasier the hamburger, the happier he is.

"You're easy," she teases, bumping his shoulder with hers as they collect their food and walk towards a table. "A five buck burger is all it takes to make you happy? Really?"

He bumps back, a faint blush staining the tips of his ears. "Shut up."

Afterwards, as they wander through the shops, she makes faces at every camera she sees, sticking her tongue out again and again until her jaw is sore. Jack smiles each time, teasing her with threats of America's Funniest Home Videos, and of using his badge to get copies of the tapes, but his hands are fisted by his sides, muscles tense, and she knows he feels it too.

They stay for an hour in the end. It's a start.

  


* * *

  


Jack drives her home and she invites him inside.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/320980.html>


End file.
